A lost ship glimpsed across the stars.
A saint born of suffocating fear.
A warrior surviving the massacre of her people, walking the snow with her heart exposed.
A girl in a floating city, dejectedly searching for symbols to match her grief.
In this collection, Michael Le Baron, accompanied by Amanda M. Jansson's art, spins twelve stories of dark wonder and mythic horror across strange planets and forgotten ages. Otherworldly saints. Collapsing gods. Love that fractures the universe.
Spanning dying plateaus, monstrous woods, the fractures of romantic obsession, and dreamlike corridors of time, where the strange is intimate, and the sacred is terrifying, these interconnected tales explore what happens when the sacred turns monstrous, and the monstrous becomes divine.
Between theodicy and absurdism, Le Baron embraces mythic ambiguity: evil as the echo of divinity in a broken mirror, horror as the weight of meaning pressing down on fragile minds.
Michael Le Baron is an American-Canadian writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. He graduated from Clark University with a degree in Asian Studies. Also a former student of philosopher Michel Serres, he is a technology lawyer with a background in criminal justice and a career that has also included contributions to marine science and teaching across the humanities. His work takes an apophatic approach to trauma, violence, the sacred, and cosmic horror, with a particular interest in how the mythic endures in the shifting terrains of memory, self, and the natural world. He has edited fiction and poetry compilations and lives in Berlin with his partner and three sons.
Amanda M. Jansson is a visual artist whose practice spans photography and painting. She holds a BA in Literature, a MoMA specialization in Contemporary Art and Design, and an MA in Art History. Her work explores identity, empowerment, and power dynamics, with a focus on gender and representation. Over the years, she has exhibited her work in galleries and cultural institutions, gaining recognition for her ability to combine strong visual storytelling with critical reflection. Alongside her individual practice, she has collaborated as a photographer and creative director on projects for magazines and brands, bringing her distinct artistic voice into broader creative fields. http: //www.littlesuicidecandy.com.
